We still love magazines recently had a catch up with Marie Amelie Sauve. It was certainly a busy moment for her...... as she was working on the new campaign of Balenciaga with Nicolas Ghesqiere, with whom she has worked with as a consultant from the beginning and simultaneously preparing her new fashion story for American Vogue where she is a contributing fashion editor.
We had worked together in Paris at Vogue for many years as editors and here we recall our first experiences as assistants; I was then at American Vogue, while she was at Vogue in Paris. It was a turning point in fashion and at magazines. We both had a certain education peculiar to the time, at the tail end of the twentieth century, when the masters of the craft were about to hand the torch to the next generation, which happened later in the 90's. In this way, we had the most fantastic teachers and also have had the possibility to take that experience and make it into something of our own. It was really like a school we will never forget and telling these stories reminds us, with big smiles, why we still love fashion and why we still love magazines!
"Well, as you know, I started at Vogue in Paris, when the offices were still at the Place du Palais Bourbon, that gorgeous beautiful place, and in front of the office, we had a famous studio, where Guy Bourdin was shooting, Helmut Newton was shooting, and Norman Parkinson! Do you remember what he looks like? He was so tall, wearing all white, head to toe; it was amazing! This is why I did fashion, its why I stayed in this business, because it was marvelous, because my eyes were dazzled! So we just had to cross the street with all the clothes and we were always working from that little studio."
"It was my first week and Francine Crescent, the editor in chief at that time said, "Marie Amelie, you will be an assistant on Guy Bourdin's shoot, and you must never say no! and never say its not possible," (as French people often do) "because you have to get him whatever he wants, because he is the best photographer in the world! Whatever he asks for you have to say yes!" I was so scared. I said "ok ok ok." And Guy was physically very small, but it was his voice that left an impression. He sounded like a little boy. He would be booked for a week just to do one story, because first he was drawing and designing each picture. We had to be at the studio in the morning for a meeting and wait. Guy would come around noon, always late, and with his little voice he would say, "Okay, today I need for my picture a pink scooter with green dots" and I would always remember that I couldn't say no, so I would say, "yes, of course Guy, we are going to get that pink scooter, but what if we don't find it in pink?" and he would say " then find a white one and make it PINK!" So we had to find ideas how to make his picture come true. Whatever he put in the drawing we would have to be creative and find a way. At one of those meetings, he said, "Okay, now we need CLOUDS in the sky!", and he was staring at me, and I was so scared. He said "Marie Amelie! Go and find clouds for the sky!" and I said "Yes, Guy, no problem, we will give you clouds!"
So everyday was a big prep in the morning, we would run all over Paris to find everything he wanted, whether it was a pink bathtub or other incredible stuff, we would build incredible sets, repaint the studio, and if we were lucky, he made one picture a day and into the night! He had the time then, to really think about each picture, he had the time to create his ideas through drawings, through his own imagination, and after it was up to us to help him create the photograph. Now we shoot ten pictures in one day."
That's why Vogue was the top of the top, because of its ability to create something even bigger than the sum of its parts. It was the beautiful clothes plus the models plus the intensity of the photographers and fashion editors at the time and their ability to reinterpret the designer's collections that ultimately led to the making of the most iconic and influential fashion spreads in the history of magazines.
Marie Amelie concurs, saying, "I thought that of course, for instance, Saint Laurent was amazing, and he became even more amazing because of Helmut Newton. Helmut took those clothes and put those clothes like in a masculine way and its why those clothes were completely twisted."
Some speculate that in addition to the digitalization of photography and the commercialization of magazines, it is still the heavy burden of being a photographer after Newton and Bourdin that has lead to a lack of new important young fashion photographers today. Of course, technology has allowed for everything to be faster, immediate, and available on a global scale instantaneously! This is no reason for magazines to lose out. Ten pictures in a day may have become the norm, but quantity should not negate quality. It was the freedom of pure collaboration (allowed by particular editors in chief such as Francine Crescent) during particular moments in time that elevated the magazine from a throw away to a collector's item.
"It was up to us to take everything and make it into something even bigger. The top in terms of beauty, of creativity and the best of everything else. That was the education I had at Vogue. It wasn't about making the pictures of the clothes, but to create the best image, even if it was shocking. It was like a wonderful school of the best of the best of the entire world."